“When you’re a Fortune 500 company that’s a favorite target of sophisticated hackers, it often makes sense to install security appliances at the outer edges of your network to stop attacks before they get far,” Dan Goodin reports for Ars Technica. “Now, researchers say they have uncovered a vulnerability in such a product from security firm FireEye that can give attackers full network access.”

“The vulnerability, which is on by default in the NX, EX, AX, FX series of FireEye products, was FireEye last week, after researchers from Google’s Project Zero privately reported it,” Goodin reports. “It made it possible for attackers to penetrate a network by sending one of its members a single malicious e-mail, even if it’s never opened. It’s not uncommon for outsiders to find such critical flaws in a security product. Still, the proof-of-concept exploit underscores that such game-over threats often extend to some of a network’s most critical equipment.”

MacDailyNews Note: FireEye released an automated remediation to customers 6 hours after notification, mitigating any customer exposure by Saturday morning, December 5th and released a full, automated fix on Monday, December 7th. FireEye users should make sure their device is running security content release 427.334 or higher.